For many years, merchants have used advertising to entice consumers to purchase goods and services. For example, merchants have traditionally appealed to consumers by presenting offers and advertisements on billboards, in magazines and newspapers, through direct mailings and telephone solicitations, and even using signs on the sides of buses. Merchants have also presented advertisements through broadcast media such as radio and television, and more recently via the internet and web broadcasts.
Regardless of the medium through which merchants present their messages, however, those messages typically attempt to create or grow, in a consumer, a desire for a particular product or service. Accordingly, in addition to consumers who may already be seeking the relevant goods or services, merchants use advertisements to reach consumers who may not be actively seeking the information presented in the advertisement and who may have been engaged in activities (e.g., watching television, driving or riding in a car) completely unrelated to a quest for the advertised goods or services.
Typically, such advertisements require a consumer to act in some way before a transaction for the advertised good or services can be completed. For example, regardless where a consumer may see or hear a particular advertisement, the consumer has historically been required to either travel to a point of purchase or dispatch a communication (e.g., place a phone call, mail an order) to the merchant before a bargain for the advertised goods or services may be struck between the merchant and the consumer. Unfortunately for the merchant, however, the more complicated or onerous the required act or the more time that lapses between the consumer's receipt of the advertisement and the performance of the required act, the less likely that consumer is to complete the act. Conversely, the simpler and quicker the required act, the more likely a transaction is to be completed. Therefore, it is desirable to enable consumers to respond to advertisements and offers with minimal time and effort, and as expeditiously as possible after perceiving a particular advertisement. Based on this principle, merchants may place impulse items, such as gum and the like, near a grocery store checkout counter or may suggest the purchase of french fries following a consumer's order of a hamburger.
Yet, while such approaches may be effective where a consumer is already engaged in a transaction with the merchant, significant obstacles remain in situations where transactional activity is not already in progress. For example, where an advertisement is presented to a consumer via a television, and where the advertisement indicates that acceptance of the offer may be performed by placing a telephone call, the consumer must then place the telephone call and present some form of payment such as credit card, debit card or checking account information and must also provide identifying information, e.g., a shipping address. In many cases, these tasks are sufficiently onerous and time consuming to dissuade a consumer from responding to the advertisement.
At the same time, it is well understood that the needs and wants of individual viewers within a viewing audience may vary greatly. Yet, advertisements that are adapted to be presented via traditional means, such as via television or radio broadcast, are typically presented without any consideration or adjustment for variations within the viewing audience. This is largely due to the fact that no satisfactory mechanism currently exists for adjusting a presentation based on real-time feedback from a consumered consumer. In addition, advertisements for presentation via television broadcast are typically prepared well in advance of their broadcast. Accordingly, such advertisements are designed to consumer the largest portion of the viewing audience and are typically fixed, being incapable of modification in response to feedback from one or more viewer. Thus, the content of such advertisements may not hold any significant appeal for significant portions of the consumer audience. Further, the non-targeted portions of the audience are typically those falling outside the mainstream.
With the advent of the internet, consumers and merchants have been able to partially address the above-mentioned drawbacks of traditional advertising mechanisms. For example, merchants are now able to provide substantial amounts of information on web sites, thereby allowing consumers with very specific needs to find advertisements that suit their particularized needs. Moreover, once internet-equipped consumers have surfed to the advertisement presenting the desired good or service, their purchase is often made very simple and quick through the use of stored information and one-click purchase features.
Yet, even these systems do not completely solve the above-described problems because they typically require the consumer to have actively sought the desired goods or services. Accordingly, currently available internet capabilities may not be effective on attracting viewers who are not already seeking the advertised goods or services. Therefore, they may not be at all effective in persuading consumers who may be engaged in passive activities, such as watching television or web broadcasts. Moreover, consumers have become increasing concerned about security issues related to transmitting an account number (e.g., associated with a transaction card) over the internet or providing the account number to a customer service representative. Additionally, parents have become increasingly concerned about minors accessing certain web pages or purchasing certain items over the internet or over the phone.
Accordingly, a need existed for a system and method for facilitating communication between a merchant and a consumer whereby a consumer engaged in a passive activity may be persuaded to seek a particular good or service and whereby the consumer may acquire such good or service from the merchant over a substantially secure framework with a minimum investment of time and effort, e.g., in an instantaneous and effortless manner. A further need existed for a system and method whereby advertisements may be adapted based on feedback provided by a particular consumer or in response to information concerning the consumer that may be stored in the facilitating system. A still further need existed for a system and method that facilitates storage of information regarding the consumer and the consumer's desired payment method whereby such information may be communicated to a merchant to facilitate the consumer's response to an advertisement.